Fair enough, that also happens more often.

I sincerely hope they uncouple Google, so I could run the applications on my OS of choice, be that Unix, Linux or Windows, without the need for an intermediate layer. What would be really cool, is if they could make it all run in encrypted enclaves to isolate all sensitive data, but I highly doubt that will happen.

Oh ya, this is going to likely become a privacy and security nightmare. I'm in Ontario, Canada, and we have some of the most pathetic and lacking security standards for privacy in general, but health care in particular.

100%, and that's the problem with supporting legacy. Maybe there was a reason on the original you had to do something stupid, I've been there, found the errata, had to program around it. 10-years later company X still runs in "floppy" mode, but, they run the ancient version and can't or won't update, now you have to keep the workaround working, and, support the new functionality.

I've also said multiple times that ~50% of your code should be comments, explain what you're doing, why, what you're thinking, the steps involve, and how you came to those conclusions. It was that stupid beeping speaker that made me change how I comment code.

There was another product where the transformer changed, but, the new transformer wasn't properly QC'd, and the variance in them caused a massive headache. The product had two transformers, and they could return slightly different values, but 19.3mV vs 19.5mV in that product was a big issue, since that converted into CFM calculation, so occasionally you'd have the left and right side unbalanced, which was bad. The solution to that issue was to create a set of per board lookup tables, that could figure out if 19.5mV was actually 19.3mV, for each transformer.

Moreover, on that issue, XC8 from Microchip had a bug during compilation where the binary wasn't byte for byte identical. Which meant you had to compile, then decompile the code to match it against the original. It was a bleeping mess. That product has over 500k installs, with those transformers, running that same firmware. On a side note, when updated the firmware, the lookup tables didn't get wiped, I had a secured enclave memory section in the MCU blocked off to store it.

I've mentioned before about the terrible code bases I've had to work on. There was a RTOS, with some crazy long function that beeped a speaker. I couldn't figure out what the function was really doing, so I broke it down line by line. Turns out, the speaker was being triggered, to reset a watch dog timer, due to a bug in the watch dog handler of the MCU. Triggering the speaker, I think, pulled a line low, which caused a voltage change, which then you could capture, it was very strange, and I might have that slightly wrong.

There was another project where to use a Microchip radio transceiver, you had to send the data, then wait Xms, then trigger a register, and yada yada yada, which was due to a bug in the transceiver. They fixed that bug ~1 year after, but we had shipped the old boards into production, so for the life of that product there were two radio functions. One to send via the old radio logic, and one that didn't need that junk, but, to update functionality, you had to add it to both functions and work around it.

Luckily that product died mid-COVID, but, I can keep going on of N products with these stupid, idiotic, annoying, but understandable strangeness in them. So my guess is: They want to clean up the code-base, and get it running in a slimmer, cleaner fashion without the bloat.

My guess, and I don't use macOS, or any Apple product, they want to remove the encryption code to clean up possible future security issues. I would bet they have a separate process / driver just to handle HFS+ encryption, that's not being maintained, or, can't be maintained due to previous compatibility requirements, so they're just forcing users to move.

Realistically, it's not that rare to change your secure volumes, or move them between services. Changing from VeraCrypt to KDE Plasma Vaults, or, changing the encryption standard in use, something I've done a few times. Supporting legacy just sucks, and there are times when you simply have to, but if you can prevent legacy support, do it.

Every Windows install that has the WSL running or Linux / Unix in a VM, would count as Linux / Unix, not Windows. I don't know how that would scale the numbers, but being you need the WSL to run just about any DevOps, SecOps, or InfoSec workload, I bet you could easily take another 10% off, if not more.

What we're seeing is what I keep pointing out in a paraphrased form of: "The Windows experiment is over, Windows lost, it's done.". People don't / can't run Windows and get professional work done, we know that, Microsoft knows that. We know they recognize that Windows is a joke because they keep building Linux / Unix functionality on top of it. Effectively at this point, Windows is just an OS to host Linux, Linux is a host that can run Windows, so Windows has no purpose or practicality any more.

People will point out that some companies don't let their staff run Linux or Unix, but if the staff is using the WSL to get around that, they may as well just switch to a proper OS.

Of course, Microsoft is creating trackable GUIDs, and linking those to online account and online activity. Why would anyone think that Microsoft would act in a decent, respectful, reasonable, security, privacy, and digital liberty respecting manner? We already knew these existed, if you go into Intune or the MDE portal, you can see the information about computers in your control / organization's control. The only reason to collect data, is to misuse and abuse data, so why would a company with the track record of Epstein for respecting users, not abuse them like it's a contest?

What customers want is a stable, decent, performant experience, what they don't want, is virtually everything Microsoft offers. What tool or product does Microsoft offer, that if you're being honest, is good enough to be declared a bronze tarnished standard? Hell, what do they offer that would be the aluminum foil from last night's roast covered in food scrap, in a rotting sink standard?

I'm sure I don't know every product Microsoft currently sells or offers, but from their main offerings, they're not just garbage, they're sicking excuses for trash. If they want to spin the company around and focus on customer need, and want, that's great, but we all know that's just Microsoft sticking their head up their ass, and complaining the air stinks.

Microsoft, please, take these ideas:

1. Convert Windows into a user land for Linux, and remove the thing you call a desktop.
2. Unify your products so they work together, over a singular design implementation.
3. Release all your products so they work across all reasonable modern operating systems.
4. Leave the Office market, LibreOffice already does it better.
5. Move your products to work offline.
6. Kill the abusive telemetry and analytic junk.
7. Make your bloat Opt-Out by default.
8. Make your AI Opt-Out by default.
9. Release physical, high quality, software and games.
10. Release all your software under the GPL, or another open license.
11. Restructure your customer service, so it's effective.
12. Start focusing on privacy and security.


Microsoft, just stop being a complete and total excuse for a company. We need to start using the term Microsoft as a verb, "To Microsoft" should mean to fail at a level in such spectacular and amazing fashion, that you exceed all known bounds of grotesque incompetence and inability. Frankly, I'm being nice, but hey, let's give them a chance.

Absolutely, and if you can't run security operations on Windows, why would you run it as a desktop operating system? The fact Windows has failed in every other market, except desktop, and they only have that due to OEMs, it shows it's not a serious offering.

They are absolutely as broad as I'm suggesting, privacy lawyers have been calling them out publicly, and doing deep dives on the many troublesome implications. That being said, I didn't think we'd agree, and we don't, so that's fine. Have a good weekend :)

You don't care what Microsoft might have about you? What if the information they have is grossly incorrect or missing context? The only reason to store the data is to use it, and sometimes that's warranted, in limited quantity, but most of the time it's not. For instance Windows 11 has a literal keylogger built in, “Ink & Typing”, do you trust that is not collecting every keystroke? They have OneDrive, which is enabled by default, and vacuums up all your files into their control. Hell, they even control Secure Boot keys they load into the UEFI which they control, mitigating the entire concept of a secure boot chain.

You can trust the government if you want, but, this is the same government who illegally used Emergency Powers to arrest innocent and peaceful protestors, freeze their bank accounts, and file terrorism charges against them. This is the same government who committed literal acts of bioterrorism against its citizens through vaccine mandates. I'm not arguing if vaccines are good or not, they should never have been forced, and even worse, forced with a side of paperwork because the government needs you papers, right? I understand the bills don't say: “We can go to Microsoft and make them hand over all your data.”, I get that, but they're so broad and expansive, they may as well say that.

ISP's store a grotesquely unacceptable amount of data, I don't think anyone would argue that. You can mitigate a lot of what they store through the use of secure DNS, VPN's, alt networks, and encryption, and you should. ProtonVPN has a handy kill switch, which means if my VPN goes down, I don't connect to the internet, and I wouldn't want to. The ISP's modem / router is locked in Bridge mode, and feeds right into a Firewall, with addition protections and obfuscations on the WAN port, to assure they can't get raw, readable data from me. Every computer in the house also runs a multihop VPN, and additional secure DNS, just to tell the ISP to shove it.

If you're with Delete Me, or a similar service, have them go after the ISP to remove your information, and make sure you don't give them anything they don't need. I can call Rogers right now, and request all the data they have on me, and they will send it, so you can check, and delete most of it. Now when it comes to phones, that's harder, but you can still run the same VPN's, and proxies on the phone, limiting that information as well.

It was C-36, not 32. They give the government sweeping powers to go around with secret gag orders, without reasonable grounds, and steal / molest your data. Why wouldn't Microsoft be targeted? Apple is, they admitted it. Google, Meta, and X are targeted, basically any company that could hold your data is. Microsoft has offices in Canada, so they're bound to hand over data under secret order.

I do agree that encryption can help prevent issues, but the encryption has to be entirely client side and uncontrolled by any authority like Microsoft, Apple, Google and so on. Instead of guessing who might have to give data up, just prevent any collection at all, and it's mitigated.

Let's assume Microsoft would never be targeted, why give them your data anyway?

I wish more people did that.

Why would I enable BitLocker when it's grossly unstable? Windows does updates and then doesn't provide enough information to BitLocker to prevent the lockouts from it's updated, that's a known constant issue.

I answered the UEFI point in a different reply, so need to address it here.

They don't have the option to provide support or not. They provide a closed system, that is broken, breaking, failing, and then never provide support. Microsoft's support is almost a feat in incompetence and fraud, and I know we disagree a lot, which is fine, but you can't honestly tell me their support is even passable.